


The world they longed to see

by Vive_la_republique



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Grantaire's sister is basically me, Les amis are awesome, Reincarnation, some of them are girls just deal with it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 09:43:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4701407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vive_la_republique/pseuds/Vive_la_republique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Les Amis have gone through many lives together, fighting and dying beside each other every time. But they never remember, or at least not until it's too late.</p><p>When Alexia thinks of the past, she gets hazy flashes of time periods she feels more familiar with than her own. But when one of her poems leads to an unfamiliar signature and a boatload of memories, she sets forces in motion that may unite the Amis once more-unless they can find a way to stop it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Poet

She's always known she was odd. 

(Although she prefers the word peculiar, or even eccentric.)

She's heard that since she was two, when her first word came out in an older version of French, despite being born in 21st century America. Since she was five, when she had her first flashback, a terrifying first-person glimpse of a bloody battle on a barricade, and started screaming her head off for no apparent reason in the middle of circle time. Since she was eight, when they started learning about Europe and she corrected her teacher sixteen times throughout the lesson, using a knowledge she didn't know she had. Since she was thirteen, when she was still talking to her imaginary friends, long after most kids stopped. 

(But they aren't imaginary. She knows this, though she's not sure how. She knew them for real, once, maybe more, at least she thinks, but it's not like there's proof)

Now she's sixteen. She's still the odd one out, but she doesn't mind, not anymore. Nobody talks to her. 

(except for the one girl with copper curls and laughing blue eyes, who always wears a Newsies cap and spends half her life in fantasy worlds, both real and imagined, but she talks to other people, too, everyone and anyone, and she doesn't understand the pain because there are anchors holding her in the present.)

(Sometimes, in the first girl's mind, there are flashes of the other one, sometimes twirling in front of a mirror in a gorgeous cream ball gown, sometimes shivering on a sinking boat, waist-deep in icy water, sometimes in a dirty brown dress, ruffling a ginger boy's hair, but most often standing by a barricade of furniture, clutching a pistol with white knuckles and staring with wild eyes at the soldier in front of her, screaming the name of another boy just before she pulls the trigger)

That girl's name is Emily, now, but for some reason it doesn't fit her, so many better names do, like Eadlyn or Evelyn or Évangeline. Yes, Évangeline fits her, much better than anything else. But she is not the most important person in the other girl's life. Not even close, because of the real/imaginary people that the girl sees when she closes her eyes. 

So many names for them, but in her mind, they will always be the Friends. They go by unfamiliar names, but they carry snatches of familiar memories with them, and she knows she's met them before, she just knows it. 

There's Gabriel, with his golden hair and flashing blue eyes, who talks to her of freedom and justice and hope, who fills her poems with a bright light she can't find within her tiny, frail body. There's Cora, with her sandy brown hair and narrow face, who helps her with math problems and tries to answer her millions of questions as they arise in class (she's given up on being normal, now, it no longer matters) or at home. There's cheerful brunette Isabel, with a personality just as bouncy as her corkscrew curls, who keeps her company when she's sad. There's skinny Jonah, who freaks out whenever she gets sick and tries to take care of her, and Leo, with his shaved head and giant feet, who keeps her entertained by having the worst luck on the planet. There's Lia, with her sunny personality and endless kindness, forever-confused Peter, and sarcastic Natali who always wears a very familiar hat. There's Ruby, with her huge green eyes and motherly attitude, Sean the ginger, with a book or two always in hand, and Drew, a hulking monster of a teenager who's always good for a joke. And last but not least, there's Grant with his messy curls and green eyes, who's great with figuring out her emotions but not his own, and Danny, a tiny blond boy who loves to play pranks and make trouble anywhere he goes. 

They talk to her, and she talks to them, and she is content. Not happy, but content. 

Her name is Alexia, but that's not right at all. She's had other names before, which fit her better, she's almost certain, but when she tries hard to grasp them they slip through her fingers and she can't reach them anymore. 

She's not surprised. 

She's a poet, and tonight she sits at her desk under a moonlit window, trying to find the answers she seeks by writing. As the ink flows onto the page, she writes of a group of students who planned on changing the world, of boys who became men fighting for freedom, only to lie cold and still on the cobblestones a day later, young lives silenced by the cruel hand of fate. 

(The girls became adults as well, but only two died-although that doesn't make their sacrifices any less)

She writes, painting pictures on the page of scenes she wasn't alive for, closer to the answers than she's ever been. Eventually, her pen slows, and she signs the poem with a name. 

But the name isn't hers. 

Jehan Prouvaire. 

Alexia is the new Jehan Prouvaire, though she doesn't understand yet. The truth will be given to her in time. She will learn. She will have to. Because the joining of the Amis could put ancient forces in motion. And Alexia-and all the others-need to be prepared.


	2. The Collector

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabel isn't as happy as she seems, and Alexia's friends definitely aren't imaginary.

She collects people, gathers them up for herself, and keeps them, whether she likes them or not, because once they're within her orbit she can't release them. 

They wouldn't leave her, anyway. 

The whole school is part of her magnet, attracted to her bouncy personality, fantastic sense of style (if she does say so herself), and general charisma, and she's basically become the queen of the in-crowd. 

She doesn't care. 

She collects people, sure, but only to find the right ones. 

(She hasn't found them, not yet, but she knows-well, she hopes-it's only a matter of time. They've got to be out there. Somewhere.)

Nobody has seen behind the mask of makeup and cheer. Nobody has bothered. But, if anyone cared enough to look, they'd see that the girl behind the wall is actually much more fragile than they expected. 

Everyone talks to her, but they aren't the right people, they don't understand what it's like not fitting in, being the odd one out even when you're the center of the in-crowd. 

It's disappointing, really, how little personality everyone seems to have now compared to before. 

(Before. A magical word. Magical, but unspecific. Her memories of before are disjointed and out of order, a film in her mind that's playing on a broken player which skips some things and then rewinds itself and goes super fast and then super slow in illogical ways.)

(But one thing she does know is the people she was friends with, even the ones she simply collected and left behind, were all much more interesting in the mysterious Before, where they didn't talk about makeup or hair or gossip about who's dating who. Well, they did, but she's almost certain she was a man in most of the memories and she didn't hang around with those kind of people.)

(Now, though, there's not much of a choice.)

There's one person from Before here, but she's not RIGHT. Not at all. Her present name is Anica St. Clair, and she's just as noticeable as she always was. Which is to say, she isn't. 

(Her brain tells her the name isn't Anica, it's Adelaide, no, it's Angelique, no, it's Azelma, but it doesn't change the memories...a silent slip of a girl up to her elbows in sudsy dish water, yet uncomplaining, the dead eyes of a corpse in her flimsy nightgown as she floated face-up in icy water, a shivering little thing who dragged her brother home after meetings and silently left a few cartridges on the table of the café whenever she could.) 

(But Anica doesn't remember, and so it doesn't matter.)

She surrounds herself with people and light and fake laughter, hoping that one day the world will show her who she actually is. 

She's Isabel, Isabel Blake, but the name feels horribly wrong in a way she can't explain. When she closes her eyes and tries to visualize the person she used to be, she gets flashes of dark curls and a contagious laugh and complaints about a missing hat, but nothing substantial, not even a face or a name. 

Isabel has an imaginary friend, still, though she's almost seventeen and much too old for it. The friend's name is Alexia, and she's a poet with auburn hair and soft brown eyes and a tiny, frail body. She carries a load of sadness and pain on her back, and Isabel helps her with it when she can. After all, it's the least she can do. 

(It's the least she can do because Alexia is the first person to feel right, EVER, and that means Isabel has to keep her safe.)

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

It's late summer when she persuades her parents to let her take the train to New York to see a show on Broadway. 

(She's obsessed with theatre-she's dramatic in every life.) 

Her parents told her to see Les Misérables, and she agreed, although she isn't sure why now. She doesn't want to watch it, not really, she prefers the high-energy, modern musicals. 

But she goes in and takes her seat, admiring the theater. She glances in the program briefly, and her eye falls upon a group of characters listed simply as "The Students." She reads the names, and she feels an overwhelming sense of déjà vu that she can't explain. 

Enjolras. 

Marius. 

Combeferre. 

Feuilly. 

Joly. 

Grantaire. 

Lesgles. 

Jean Prouvaire. 

And Courfeyrac. Why does that name in particular sound so familiar? 

She enjoys the show immensely, but then they get to "ABC Café" and the guy who plays Enjolras sings, "Well, Courfeyrac, do we have all the guns?" 

And Isabel feels as if she's been hit by a truck. 

Courfeyrac. That was it! That was her name! For god's sake, Enjolras had said that very same sentence to her 183 YEARS AGO! 

The memories of 1832 floods over her like a dam, and she can't remember anything from the rest of the play (not that it mattered, she'd been there, she knew how it ended), but once the memories are over she realizes something. 

The boy playing Enjolras-Gabriel Aubrey, according to the playbill-is actually Enjolras. She knows him through and through, they've been through many lifetimes together, and that HAS to be him. Either that or she's been seeing things (which may well be the case). 

She's going to find him though, and add him to her collection, because once she's found the right person, she refuses to let them go. 

She can't.

Isabel is Courfeyrac, and she understands what she needs to do. 

The collection needs to be complete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm an idiot and just realized I forgot to tag Azelma but honestly who cares? 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a comment! 
> 
> Sorry for my odd writing style and super short chapters, hopefully you'll get used to it.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic I've ever published, so please be nice! I have no proofreader so all mistakes are mine. Hope you enjoy it!


End file.
